I got sufficiently annoyed with the flood of refi and mortgage spam that I did alittle investigation of the e-mails. Now, greedy bastards are often pretty clever so I expected that obvious clues like the sender and other header info is bogus. What I did discover is that the links in the body of the messages look like they point to sites that some deep pocketed legitimate business has ultimate responsibility for. The links begin like:
br.geocities.com/xxxx?xxx where the "x" is some lexagraphically rare junk, an account and a parameter.
Some of the links begin mx.geocities and there are varients where the URL begins
yahoo.com.geocities.br ... or similar.
I sent one of the offending e-mails to the email abuse mailbox at yahoo.com who owns geocities.
The point of this is that it doesn't matter what kind of bogus crap is in the e-mail header the ultimate pay-off for the spammer is the link on some legitimate domain, and the owner of that domain has responsibility to police his users.
I sent a list of 20-odd of the links to the some e-mail as before. The course of action the people at geocities/yahoo should take is to disable the accounts who own the links,
and if the accounts are bogus in some way, they are temp accounts opened for a day or so and then closed, Yahoo should institute a policy on those domains that there must be a waiting period for new accounts. This is a simple system administration policy that could be used on sites that cause this much spam to discourage it and to incense the users of the same domain in Mexico or Brazil to police themselves or to demand their system administrators to do their jobs.
People don't need to navigate state vs. federal jurisdiction for anti-spam law, or launch questionable DoS attacks on the site or domain; we know who is untimately responsible, that is yahoo.com. A civil suit claiming damages of $100 million or so in the jurisdiction of the parent company for contributary negliance, because Yahoo is not using simple precautions in managing its web servers, should get their attention and put a stop to this nonsense.
This is my idea.
Bruce Salem
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Jacob Hacker speaks on "Great Risk Shift"
Jacob Hacker author of The Great Risk Shift spoke on Oct. 27 at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park Ca. trying to raise individual awareness of how government, industry, and institutions such as insurers are passing risk to individuals least able to cope. His talk didn't go far enough in my opinion in revealing how rich and powerful groups get the individual to unwittingly accept risk when it is intentionally disguized in fine print or glossed over in complexity designed to make it hard to see it for what it is. Aside from fraud or assuming a risk such as an interest-free mortgage because one is overly optimistic about the future, risk is nickel and dimed in our direction either through the details of contracts an individual is least inclined to read throughly or institutionally in the legislative process by the sheer complexity of disclosure.
It is the complexity itself that comprises an unfair advantage to the rich and powerful and disclosure alone does not protect the indivudual from being defrauded. Surely, if you have a legal staff you can wade through the complex verbage of a lengthy contract or text of a proposed law and find out if it workes for you. The State Ballot Proposition process in California and elsewhere is a case of this in reverse. By exposing the votors to the true complexity of the legislative process in the guize of creating more democracy the special interests, the wealthy, the PACs, the lawyers, know from the outset that the average person will get confused and discouraged by the text of the proposed law, especially if the proposed law is constructed to confuse. Can the impulse on the part of votors to vote "no" on every proposition rather than accepting the risk of being duped be far off? Or if the votors get annoyed with the barrage of advertizing which now begins about six months to a year before each election, then out of sheer disgust, they will vote against either the proposition or the group that spent the most money, either approach makes sense.
I wonder if this complexity is the weight that causes civilizations to collapse. At least one componant of large scale change during times of revolution is a purging of the accmulatted precidents and the interest groups who are protected by them. A concept of law based on principles and precidents is what most people point to, but rearely do they add that from time to time there has to be a clensing and smplification of the codes. People are unhappy with the U.S. Congress beause it is corrupt and it doesn't address their interests. It is more that it seems to do so little, that angers people, than that there is corruption. A little graft is more acceptable than the belief that Congress is not helping us or even that it is working against us. Legislatures add to complexity by modifying existing law and not removing old law. It is the sheer weight of law that has to be delt with which disadvantages legislatures and in the tension of power grab between the Executive and Legislatitive, the former knows that he can get the upper hand by making the job of the latter more complex.
Thomas Jefferson said that there needed to be a bloodless revolution every 70 years or so. America seems to have the shifts in power usually only following a panic or economic depression as if it is a big failure in the private sector which beings everybody around in a like mindedness about attending to public policy. Or is it that plotocrats, with their ability to use complexity and confusion to keep factions off balance, are temporarily weakened by hard times, and the rest of us, individual citizens, become united in need and are able to put the Fear of God in legislators to listen to us?
It is the complexity itself that comprises an unfair advantage to the rich and powerful and disclosure alone does not protect the indivudual from being defrauded. Surely, if you have a legal staff you can wade through the complex verbage of a lengthy contract or text of a proposed law and find out if it workes for you. The State Ballot Proposition process in California and elsewhere is a case of this in reverse. By exposing the votors to the true complexity of the legislative process in the guize of creating more democracy the special interests, the wealthy, the PACs, the lawyers, know from the outset that the average person will get confused and discouraged by the text of the proposed law, especially if the proposed law is constructed to confuse. Can the impulse on the part of votors to vote "no" on every proposition rather than accepting the risk of being duped be far off? Or if the votors get annoyed with the barrage of advertizing which now begins about six months to a year before each election, then out of sheer disgust, they will vote against either the proposition or the group that spent the most money, either approach makes sense.
I wonder if this complexity is the weight that causes civilizations to collapse. At least one componant of large scale change during times of revolution is a purging of the accmulatted precidents and the interest groups who are protected by them. A concept of law based on principles and precidents is what most people point to, but rearely do they add that from time to time there has to be a clensing and smplification of the codes. People are unhappy with the U.S. Congress beause it is corrupt and it doesn't address their interests. It is more that it seems to do so little, that angers people, than that there is corruption. A little graft is more acceptable than the belief that Congress is not helping us or even that it is working against us. Legislatures add to complexity by modifying existing law and not removing old law. It is the sheer weight of law that has to be delt with which disadvantages legislatures and in the tension of power grab between the Executive and Legislatitive, the former knows that he can get the upper hand by making the job of the latter more complex.
Thomas Jefferson said that there needed to be a bloodless revolution every 70 years or so. America seems to have the shifts in power usually only following a panic or economic depression as if it is a big failure in the private sector which beings everybody around in a like mindedness about attending to public policy. Or is it that plotocrats, with their ability to use complexity and confusion to keep factions off balance, are temporarily weakened by hard times, and the rest of us, individual citizens, become united in need and are able to put the Fear of God in legislators to listen to us?
Friday, October 06, 2006
Playing repeats and double endings.
I recently acquired yet another recording of the "Russian" Middle Period String Quartets of Beethoven Opp 59 nos. 1-3 Quartets nos. 7-9. The middle one in E-minor, is a favorite and the performance by the Takacs Quartet includes a repeat with double ending that I've never heard before. I checked the score and the repeat is indeed there. Most people wouldn't know about repeats with double endings unless they had the score,
So what are these repeats and double endings and why are they there? The idea is that the performers come to the repeat and play again the whole section. With the double ending they play the first ending, repeat the section and then play the second ending continuing on into the next section. With the advent of 80 min. CDs it is possible for recording companies to allow for repeats.
When you think about why composers wrote repeats and where in the form they put them, the option to play the long version in modern performances becomes clear. Before recorded sound the listener got only the live performance to get the idea of a movement. In a Sonata Form, like the first movement of Op 59 #2, the audience gets to hear the exposition with its tonic key area and main theme and modulation to second key area and theme and then close. To reinforce the impression the exposition was often marked with a repeat and double ending. The double ending is required because the development section of a Sonata Form often begins with a modulation to a distant key, far from the tonic of the piece, becomes complex harmonically and contrapuntally and must find its way back harmonically to a cadence that returns to the tonic key and a recapitulation of of the exposition, but this must have the wrench of a different key for the second key theme, a false transition and rhyme of the second key area, and it must allow for extension of the close into a coda.
What Beethoven does is to repeat the development and recapitulation up to where the coda begins. This repeat is rarely played, but it is there in the score. It has a double ending and so the first of these are never heard unless the whole section is repeated. What it must do is to modulate from E-major back to E-Flat Minor that begins the development, in three measures. The arrival at E-major ( The key of the rhyme of the second key ) moves briefly through E Minor in the second ending at that repeat to eventually modulate back to E-minor, the key of the coda. We always hear this ending because we always get to the coda of the piece.
The sonata forms of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven often have both the exposition and the development and recap. repeated, and they don't always have double endings, but their works were often recorded in the days of LPs without the repeats because of time limitations and unless you were looking at the score, you would never know, except for ocasionally hearing one of the repeats and that was usually of the exposition. Only rarely was the entire repeat cycle and double endings played. Now, we can hear more examples.
So what are these repeats and double endings and why are they there? The idea is that the performers come to the repeat and play again the whole section. With the double ending they play the first ending, repeat the section and then play the second ending continuing on into the next section. With the advent of 80 min. CDs it is possible for recording companies to allow for repeats.
When you think about why composers wrote repeats and where in the form they put them, the option to play the long version in modern performances becomes clear. Before recorded sound the listener got only the live performance to get the idea of a movement. In a Sonata Form, like the first movement of Op 59 #2, the audience gets to hear the exposition with its tonic key area and main theme and modulation to second key area and theme and then close. To reinforce the impression the exposition was often marked with a repeat and double ending. The double ending is required because the development section of a Sonata Form often begins with a modulation to a distant key, far from the tonic of the piece, becomes complex harmonically and contrapuntally and must find its way back harmonically to a cadence that returns to the tonic key and a recapitulation of of the exposition, but this must have the wrench of a different key for the second key theme, a false transition and rhyme of the second key area, and it must allow for extension of the close into a coda.
What Beethoven does is to repeat the development and recapitulation up to where the coda begins. This repeat is rarely played, but it is there in the score. It has a double ending and so the first of these are never heard unless the whole section is repeated. What it must do is to modulate from E-major back to E-Flat Minor that begins the development, in three measures. The arrival at E-major ( The key of the rhyme of the second key ) moves briefly through E Minor in the second ending at that repeat to eventually modulate back to E-minor, the key of the coda. We always hear this ending because we always get to the coda of the piece.
The sonata forms of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven often have both the exposition and the development and recap. repeated, and they don't always have double endings, but their works were often recorded in the days of LPs without the repeats because of time limitations and unless you were looking at the score, you would never know, except for ocasionally hearing one of the repeats and that was usually of the exposition. Only rarely was the entire repeat cycle and double endings played. Now, we can hear more examples.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Political Economy as sharing opportunity and risk
A New book, The Great Risk Shift, by Jacob Hacker, analyzes changes in people's expectations in America over the past quarter century or so that result in their acceptance of more risk at the urging of government and major institutions of finance and business; from employers who reduce their security and benefits, to insurance and government programs who reduce services and raise rates. What people are told is economic necessity is often an inducement for them to accept more risk, to accept the risk that they thought was going to be reduced by them paying taxes, paying insurance premiums, going to the doctor, supporting the institutions of the legal system, law enforcement, and government and being loyal to companies who in the past provided some measure of job security and career path.
Most of those expectations have been gradually reduced and with little fanfare as doing so often enhances the bottom line of entities who now have interests that conflict with the people whom they are asking for loyality. That includes now, many of the largest employers in the nation, the health care system, the government, both local and national, and the leaders of these institutions. Viewing public policy, political economy, creation of opportunity along with the foisting of risk off onto the individual, the little guy, by big and powerful institutions is electrifying. It provides a way to cut through the economic mumbo-jumbo and partisin rhetoric which has poisned the well of public discourse, and it opens the possibility that people will finally get mad as hell at being conned.
Much of this reflects the role of complexity in law as a tool of the wealthy and powerful against individuals and the disadvantaged. Even though nominally, legislation and equal protection under law is supposed to treat large and small, rich and poor alike, the very complexity of legisaltion favors the big and wealthy because only they have the resources, time.money, and staff to navigate through the morass of details. So, people see changes that happen gradually as influiencial groups reset expectations as somehow neutral, when in fact they represent the taking of advantage and cleaver denying of a choice that people had all along.
Surely, if you felt that your doctor, the medical group he is part of, the insurance company that pays for your medical coverage, the drug company, and all up and down the healthcare foodhain was systematically withholding information that you could use at no cost to improve and maintain a healthy life, you would be mad as hell. You would be even more angry if you relaized that the amount of time the doctor spends with you is directly traded off against preventative care and telling you things you could do yourself. That the expensive tests he ordered were not because you had a high probability of having that rare condition, but because he was libel if he didn't test for it. He is passng his risk to you and you are paying for it directly.
The same is true of drug costs and the way drugs are tested and approved in ths country. What the major drug companies say is that they wouldn't be able to develop drugs without having to charge the high rates they charge. But they are really passing the risks of research onto us and are not accountable to us that their profits reflect fair overhead and return on investment. We have no way of knowing that they are not gouging us.
Presumably we pay taxes to have the government do things that are too risky for private sector businesses to do, yet as soon as some new technology is proven we give it away to private companies who market it to us at huge margins. Nearly all of the technology for computers and the Internet was developed, concept proved, put into more than working prototype under government contract. Microsoft, for example, has ony added sizzle to this steak. What do we get by paying for the huge profits this company has made? Do we pay for the risks of them doing business? And why?
This was all made clear to me years ago when as small lab I was working in was made into a "cost center". This is a way to make an operation accountable and would seem innocuous, but in fact it is a political act, as many seemingly neutral economic acts really are. The manager of the larger group wanted to eliminate this lab, so he broke out its cost as a line item in his budget. When people want to subsidize something they hide its budget within some other operation. This is the real meaning of Privatization. This is code language for "You are visible and on the chopping block, out of favor." Notice how local governments use creation of cost centers to target those services they want to cut back or eliminate, such as public transit, and how they hide certian others. This is an example of how risk is passed on as accounting and organization change. It is political, which means that the advantage of one group of people is enhanced at the expense of another.
And of course George W. Bush's so-called War on Terror is also about the assumption of risk nationwide and if we look at it and its satellite issues such as the Patriot Act, the ability of the Congress NOT to do its job for US, the porragatives given to the police and userped by the President himself, we are at even greater risk, we assume more risk as individual citizens, then before 9-11, not of jets falling out of the sky, but due to the imcompetance and abuse of power by our own leaders, for trading off a half-hearted attempt to get Bin-Ladin, an ineffectual, badily planned war in Iraq, based on a pack of lies, for a politics of fear, puts us at at far greater risk at home than any band of Islamic extremists could have hoped for. Much of this bungeling from the FEMA messup to Rumsfeld's incompetance has to do with the way risk is handled in corporate culture.
Military men know about risk first hand, and they have to deal with it when it confronts them at a moment's notice. Ths is a far cry from the way risk is delt with in a business setting, and this is why we have such a screw-up. Risk is usually handed in business by trying to pass it on to the next person down the line. Just today I heard of an opportunity to do web site design via Internet. I came to find out that this is a classic case of passing on risk. The guy running the service was just a middleman, the agents who implemented sites really were salesmen on commissions and so he could sit fat and pretty while his agents, whom he misrepresented as technical people, assumed all the risk. So Bush and Rumsfeld thought that they could pass on the risk and lie their way into political and economic control of Mid-East Oil under the guise of fighting terrorism. All they have succcedded in doing is sowing dragon's theeth among people who might have thought highly of us and imported terrorism and hatred as fear.
The trick is to push back on people trying to foist of their risk onto you. Certaintly upping the risk for incompetant leaders at the ballot box is one way, but others are not to support expensive foodchains whose cost is rising because of the way they make you assume their risk of doing business. If the fares on the local commuter train went up because the management said if we spend half a billion of leveling the tracks and run bulet trains we will get more people who will pay a higher fare to ride faster, don't take the train. Increase the risk to those managers for making a bad decision. If the helthcare system is too expensive, resist your doctor to prescribe expensive tests and drugs. Don't see him if he doesn't advise on preventative medicine. If you don't like the price of gas, don't drive, or drive less. Think about how being lazy or convenience feeds the status quo. The system is designed to make it easy to exploit your weaknesses and lazyness. Don't let it. Think about every purchase, every economic decision as if it were truely a political decision, and view economics as opportunity, yes, but be aware that someone is also trying to pass on their risk to you.
Most of those expectations have been gradually reduced and with little fanfare as doing so often enhances the bottom line of entities who now have interests that conflict with the people whom they are asking for loyality. That includes now, many of the largest employers in the nation, the health care system, the government, both local and national, and the leaders of these institutions. Viewing public policy, political economy, creation of opportunity along with the foisting of risk off onto the individual, the little guy, by big and powerful institutions is electrifying. It provides a way to cut through the economic mumbo-jumbo and partisin rhetoric which has poisned the well of public discourse, and it opens the possibility that people will finally get mad as hell at being conned.
Much of this reflects the role of complexity in law as a tool of the wealthy and powerful against individuals and the disadvantaged. Even though nominally, legislation and equal protection under law is supposed to treat large and small, rich and poor alike, the very complexity of legisaltion favors the big and wealthy because only they have the resources, time.money, and staff to navigate through the morass of details. So, people see changes that happen gradually as influiencial groups reset expectations as somehow neutral, when in fact they represent the taking of advantage and cleaver denying of a choice that people had all along.
Surely, if you felt that your doctor, the medical group he is part of, the insurance company that pays for your medical coverage, the drug company, and all up and down the healthcare foodhain was systematically withholding information that you could use at no cost to improve and maintain a healthy life, you would be mad as hell. You would be even more angry if you relaized that the amount of time the doctor spends with you is directly traded off against preventative care and telling you things you could do yourself. That the expensive tests he ordered were not because you had a high probability of having that rare condition, but because he was libel if he didn't test for it. He is passng his risk to you and you are paying for it directly.
The same is true of drug costs and the way drugs are tested and approved in ths country. What the major drug companies say is that they wouldn't be able to develop drugs without having to charge the high rates they charge. But they are really passing the risks of research onto us and are not accountable to us that their profits reflect fair overhead and return on investment. We have no way of knowing that they are not gouging us.
Presumably we pay taxes to have the government do things that are too risky for private sector businesses to do, yet as soon as some new technology is proven we give it away to private companies who market it to us at huge margins. Nearly all of the technology for computers and the Internet was developed, concept proved, put into more than working prototype under government contract. Microsoft, for example, has ony added sizzle to this steak. What do we get by paying for the huge profits this company has made? Do we pay for the risks of them doing business? And why?
This was all made clear to me years ago when as small lab I was working in was made into a "cost center". This is a way to make an operation accountable and would seem innocuous, but in fact it is a political act, as many seemingly neutral economic acts really are. The manager of the larger group wanted to eliminate this lab, so he broke out its cost as a line item in his budget. When people want to subsidize something they hide its budget within some other operation. This is the real meaning of Privatization. This is code language for "You are visible and on the chopping block, out of favor." Notice how local governments use creation of cost centers to target those services they want to cut back or eliminate, such as public transit, and how they hide certian others. This is an example of how risk is passed on as accounting and organization change. It is political, which means that the advantage of one group of people is enhanced at the expense of another.
And of course George W. Bush's so-called War on Terror is also about the assumption of risk nationwide and if we look at it and its satellite issues such as the Patriot Act, the ability of the Congress NOT to do its job for US, the porragatives given to the police and userped by the President himself, we are at even greater risk, we assume more risk as individual citizens, then before 9-11, not of jets falling out of the sky, but due to the imcompetance and abuse of power by our own leaders, for trading off a half-hearted attempt to get Bin-Ladin, an ineffectual, badily planned war in Iraq, based on a pack of lies, for a politics of fear, puts us at at far greater risk at home than any band of Islamic extremists could have hoped for. Much of this bungeling from the FEMA messup to Rumsfeld's incompetance has to do with the way risk is handled in corporate culture.
Military men know about risk first hand, and they have to deal with it when it confronts them at a moment's notice. Ths is a far cry from the way risk is delt with in a business setting, and this is why we have such a screw-up. Risk is usually handed in business by trying to pass it on to the next person down the line. Just today I heard of an opportunity to do web site design via Internet. I came to find out that this is a classic case of passing on risk. The guy running the service was just a middleman, the agents who implemented sites really were salesmen on commissions and so he could sit fat and pretty while his agents, whom he misrepresented as technical people, assumed all the risk. So Bush and Rumsfeld thought that they could pass on the risk and lie their way into political and economic control of Mid-East Oil under the guise of fighting terrorism. All they have succcedded in doing is sowing dragon's theeth among people who might have thought highly of us and imported terrorism and hatred as fear.
The trick is to push back on people trying to foist of their risk onto you. Certaintly upping the risk for incompetant leaders at the ballot box is one way, but others are not to support expensive foodchains whose cost is rising because of the way they make you assume their risk of doing business. If the fares on the local commuter train went up because the management said if we spend half a billion of leveling the tracks and run bulet trains we will get more people who will pay a higher fare to ride faster, don't take the train. Increase the risk to those managers for making a bad decision. If the helthcare system is too expensive, resist your doctor to prescribe expensive tests and drugs. Don't see him if he doesn't advise on preventative medicine. If you don't like the price of gas, don't drive, or drive less. Think about how being lazy or convenience feeds the status quo. The system is designed to make it easy to exploit your weaknesses and lazyness. Don't let it. Think about every purchase, every economic decision as if it were truely a political decision, and view economics as opportunity, yes, but be aware that someone is also trying to pass on their risk to you.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Why Blog?
I notice no evidence that my blog has generated any effect on others. If one just wanted to make notes on-line for one's own use, you would pull up your favorite text-editor and create a simple file for reading at some time later, but implicit in creating a blog is that you thought that what you write would generate some interest in others.
Now, people could be lurking, reading without the need to respond, but enjoying what they see, but not feeling the need to respond.
Or maybe the rate of activity on a blog is too low. It seems that people need to post to their blog every day, maybe many times a day, to generate some kind of activity hit so that the engine that says "new" sees the blog and it gets promoted to the top of some hit list. Maybe blogs that have low activity get bumped down to the end of some mythical list of active blogs.
There has to be more to it than that. There has to be some hit of interest with the comunity that reads blogs, and no activity means no interest from that community. One can respond in the way a marketer would and ask "What do I need to do to get attention?" and act accordingly, but because the price of entry is low, one could just as easily say "To thine own self be true and to hell with other people." If thei aim is mearely to have a low-overhead way to say things in a public space and not be attached to being noticed, then I guess there is no loss.
One way to deal with the curiosity about why one would create a blog that generates no interest is to look at lots of other blogs in this same space, and I have. The range of styles and the appeal is very broad and bewildering. Some of the lesson appears to be that most of the people, but not all, are quite different from me in being younger, on the other hand I am technical having been associated with computers when they were made up of discrete circuits, but I am not presenting myself here that way.
Still, this problem is now a curiosity. Surely, there has to be someone out there who likes what I've said here, and maybe all I need to do is to say what I have to say more regularly, or maybe the audience is just not interested in what I have been saying, which brings me back to the original question: Why do this anyway?
I was going to do this on my web site, but my sysop didn't want server side scripts to run, meaning PhP scripts to dynaically update my site. I still had to edit my pages and upload them statically to the server, so I decided to try this as a means to dash off ideas here and there. Maybe I ought not to care about an audience as one of the goals was to write pretty much what was on my mind at the moment.
Now, people could be lurking, reading without the need to respond, but enjoying what they see, but not feeling the need to respond.
Or maybe the rate of activity on a blog is too low. It seems that people need to post to their blog every day, maybe many times a day, to generate some kind of activity hit so that the engine that says "new" sees the blog and it gets promoted to the top of some hit list. Maybe blogs that have low activity get bumped down to the end of some mythical list of active blogs.
There has to be more to it than that. There has to be some hit of interest with the comunity that reads blogs, and no activity means no interest from that community. One can respond in the way a marketer would and ask "What do I need to do to get attention?" and act accordingly, but because the price of entry is low, one could just as easily say "To thine own self be true and to hell with other people." If thei aim is mearely to have a low-overhead way to say things in a public space and not be attached to being noticed, then I guess there is no loss.
One way to deal with the curiosity about why one would create a blog that generates no interest is to look at lots of other blogs in this same space, and I have. The range of styles and the appeal is very broad and bewildering. Some of the lesson appears to be that most of the people, but not all, are quite different from me in being younger, on the other hand I am technical having been associated with computers when they were made up of discrete circuits, but I am not presenting myself here that way.
Still, this problem is now a curiosity. Surely, there has to be someone out there who likes what I've said here, and maybe all I need to do is to say what I have to say more regularly, or maybe the audience is just not interested in what I have been saying, which brings me back to the original question: Why do this anyway?
I was going to do this on my web site, but my sysop didn't want server side scripts to run, meaning PhP scripts to dynaically update my site. I still had to edit my pages and upload them statically to the server, so I decided to try this as a means to dash off ideas here and there. Maybe I ought not to care about an audience as one of the goals was to write pretty much what was on my mind at the moment.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Revision as insight into creative process
Recently I have studied several revisions of important symphonic works, the Third and Eighth Bruckner Symphonies and the "Little Russian" Symphony #2 of Tschaikovsky from recordings with orchestral scores. This is a window into the creative process at the mid level of scale. At the lowest level is the most difficult, the least tangable, or creation of motives, themes, melody and phrases, like composing sentences in language. Above that in the relm of these kinds of works are two different tasks. The first is to expand smaller musical ideas into the process of the larger form. What these revisions show, often separated by a decade or more in time is how each composer masters form as he matures. It is at once clear that the outer movements of four movement symohonies present the most challenge and that inner movements such as adagio or scherzo have more to do with the second main task or orchestration.
To be sure the Adagio of Bruckner Third from 1873 was reworked at least three times. First, there is the change caused by Wagner's death wich caused the composer to alter the coda of the movement, that is historical, but there or the numerous textual changes, such as the elimination of the counterpoint in the high voices (violins) between the 1873 and 1889 versions, but even with the common cuts Bruckner made, the work was not reworked as much as the outer movements.
The same can be said for the inner movements of the "Little Russian". They are less changed between the earlier version and the later one, although the Scherzo is textually reworked, the same sound is there and the orchestration has been changed. In fact I think that the older version is rhetorically clearer than the newer one. The syncopation and motion of the bass line is clearer than in the later version. The second movement is least changed.
The real struggle concerns the form and text of the first and last movements of the Bruckner Third Symphony. It is obvious to the casual listener that the later (1889) version, the one which is usually performed, flows better, especially in the last movement. Bruckner seems to have relied on bringing things to a screeching halt as a younger composer to create points of arrival within the sonata form, and then to have tightened up overall form considerably in the later version, which was made after the success of his Seventh Symphony. That it is the form which makes the difference is clear since thematic material was not changed very much.
Now, the Eighth Symphony also has two versions, but the differences come mostly from cuts in the outer movements and more changes in the scherzo, which suffered more recomposing. My opinion is that on some days I like the new better than the old and on other days the reverse.
To be sure the Adagio of Bruckner Third from 1873 was reworked at least three times. First, there is the change caused by Wagner's death wich caused the composer to alter the coda of the movement, that is historical, but there or the numerous textual changes, such as the elimination of the counterpoint in the high voices (violins) between the 1873 and 1889 versions, but even with the common cuts Bruckner made, the work was not reworked as much as the outer movements.
The same can be said for the inner movements of the "Little Russian". They are less changed between the earlier version and the later one, although the Scherzo is textually reworked, the same sound is there and the orchestration has been changed. In fact I think that the older version is rhetorically clearer than the newer one. The syncopation and motion of the bass line is clearer than in the later version. The second movement is least changed.
The real struggle concerns the form and text of the first and last movements of the Bruckner Third Symphony. It is obvious to the casual listener that the later (1889) version, the one which is usually performed, flows better, especially in the last movement. Bruckner seems to have relied on bringing things to a screeching halt as a younger composer to create points of arrival within the sonata form, and then to have tightened up overall form considerably in the later version, which was made after the success of his Seventh Symphony. That it is the form which makes the difference is clear since thematic material was not changed very much.
Now, the Eighth Symphony also has two versions, but the differences come mostly from cuts in the outer movements and more changes in the scherzo, which suffered more recomposing. My opinion is that on some days I like the new better than the old and on other days the reverse.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Music as Sacred
Bruce Salem to my own blog:
One of the central ideas of Positive Psychology is to bring the sacred, the transcendant, into the commonplace. This is often done as a maditation on the divine in everything, but I have experienced this recently by making my favorite music, which is a large chunk of the serious music repretiore, a part of my day to day routine. I take it everywhere I go. It is not reserved for a special time like it was when access to it was reserved to a radio concert or to time spent in front of a bulky immovable hifi system. The point is not what iPods and CD players allow for mobile music but how having the pleasures of such wonderful art brighten moments that would have been just ordinary or oppressive with worry in the past.
There is more to this than memory of places or music past, but of present and form in the present as the music forms themselves impose a rhythm and a ritural on ordinary tasks. I used to wonder about religious people who had to go to services everyday, but now I understand. For me hearing and thinking about some favorite music everyday is like that. It is a pilgramage to the heart, something that may come out of last night's dream or out of the wonder of hearing a piece for the first time, or rehearing a work known for decades, but anew somehow. Of course there is an intellectual stimulation of learning facts that surround the nusic, its history and form and technical details, such as examining a score or learning a part, there is something wonderfully present in being intimate with such a thing of beauty which requires a good memory of it
and then marvaling that one can do that, remember and savor the whole thing
not knowing why one is so blessed.
One of the central ideas of Positive Psychology is to bring the sacred, the transcendant, into the commonplace. This is often done as a maditation on the divine in everything, but I have experienced this recently by making my favorite music, which is a large chunk of the serious music repretiore, a part of my day to day routine. I take it everywhere I go. It is not reserved for a special time like it was when access to it was reserved to a radio concert or to time spent in front of a bulky immovable hifi system. The point is not what iPods and CD players allow for mobile music but how having the pleasures of such wonderful art brighten moments that would have been just ordinary or oppressive with worry in the past.
There is more to this than memory of places or music past, but of present and form in the present as the music forms themselves impose a rhythm and a ritural on ordinary tasks. I used to wonder about religious people who had to go to services everyday, but now I understand. For me hearing and thinking about some favorite music everyday is like that. It is a pilgramage to the heart, something that may come out of last night's dream or out of the wonder of hearing a piece for the first time, or rehearing a work known for decades, but anew somehow. Of course there is an intellectual stimulation of learning facts that surround the nusic, its history and form and technical details, such as examining a score or learning a part, there is something wonderfully present in being intimate with such a thing of beauty which requires a good memory of it
and then marvaling that one can do that, remember and savor the whole thing
not knowing why one is so blessed.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Your past on the Internet never dies
I have been meaning to update my blog, but when I Googled myself, I found my history up to the moment on the Internet excruciatingly detailed, including lots of debates I had on the USENET newsgroup talk.origins from 1988 to 1996, and found these posts referenced and echoed in several places. This is alittle disquieting not because I would recant the substance of things that I said back then or that my basic views about those things have changed. It is just that I had moved on to other things and my approach to things, the tone I take, has changed.
Now, I have no doubt as to the correctness of organic evolution, or cosmic evolution for that matter and the antiquity of the earth and universe, nor have I revised my conclusion about the essential moral authoritarianism of the "people of the Book" religions that all trace to the prophet Abraham, remembering that the followers number close to 2 Billion people, but spiritual truths take many forms and no one faith or approach to wisdom has a monopoly on the truth. Also, many of those who fervantly believe in one of these three great traditions are people of toleration and good will who can see past rhetorical positions that conceal base motives. Nothing in human strieving to be better should disavow the evil that is always close at hand especially in the zeal to have authority and control.
I want to write in posts to come here soon about all the work I have been doing on Franz Joseph Haydn, whose Symphonies and Piano Sonatas have had ny attention for the past couple of months. When I have something intelligent to say here. I will pick up that topic.
Now, I have no doubt as to the correctness of organic evolution, or cosmic evolution for that matter and the antiquity of the earth and universe, nor have I revised my conclusion about the essential moral authoritarianism of the "people of the Book" religions that all trace to the prophet Abraham, remembering that the followers number close to 2 Billion people, but spiritual truths take many forms and no one faith or approach to wisdom has a monopoly on the truth. Also, many of those who fervantly believe in one of these three great traditions are people of toleration and good will who can see past rhetorical positions that conceal base motives. Nothing in human strieving to be better should disavow the evil that is always close at hand especially in the zeal to have authority and control.
I want to write in posts to come here soon about all the work I have been doing on Franz Joseph Haydn, whose Symphonies and Piano Sonatas have had ny attention for the past couple of months. When I have something intelligent to say here. I will pick up that topic.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Mozart "Abduction" and Forgiveness idea
On the ocassion of Mozart's 250th Birthday Anniversery I decided to work on The Abduction from the Seraglio with the Dover score and two recordings I had, one complete one used in the movie "Mozart in Turkey" and the other a selections CD from Laserlight. This latter is notable for the beautiful voice of Sylvia Greenverg as Blonde. Secondarily, I celebrated the event by seeing this same opera and then Cose fan Tutte on DVD, the latter has Cicillia Bartoli as Flordiligi from the Zurich Opera under Nicolas Honnicourt. From studying the subtitles it became clear to me that although the class roles of the characters, including the "Masque" aspect, where a character of one rank assumes the disguise of another to provide a parody of class distinctions, the element of forgiveness and loosening and abayance of expected rights is paramont.
In Seraglio the Pasha Selime, a corrupted form of my last name in Arabic, "The Peaceful One", lives up to that and frees salves from a shipwreck even as he hears that one of them is the son of a Spainish Noble who inflicted loss on him. The same is true in La Clemenza di Tito, a wonderful work that dates from the same time as Magic Flute in which the Roman emperor Titus forgives a plot against him from his own wife. Cosi also has the same feature. The women do give in to the attentions of the other lover, each betrothed disguised as an Albanian stranger, after great resistance, are found out and confess, but are granted forgiveness.
A couple of points. The Dover Score, which is widely available, has voice parts in C-clef, so it is hard to use if you are unfamiliar with reading those. A little practice is needed.
Seraglio and Magic Flute are in German with lots of spoken dialogue. This is the "Singspiel", an emerging type of opera which Beethoven's Fidelio is another example. Most of the other Mozart Operas are Italian Opera with no spoken dialogue. In Mozart's day most of the nerration was cast as secco recitative or dry dialogue set to nusic accompanyed by continuo. It usually freely modulates from the key of the preceeding to the key of the next piece. If the Recitative is especially dranatic, it is fully orchestrated. The ensamble and arias are "set", they elaborate an emotional state in the action. This is also true of the cantata literature, i.e. Bach.
In Seraglio the Pasha Selime, a corrupted form of my last name in Arabic, "The Peaceful One", lives up to that and frees salves from a shipwreck even as he hears that one of them is the son of a Spainish Noble who inflicted loss on him. The same is true in La Clemenza di Tito, a wonderful work that dates from the same time as Magic Flute in which the Roman emperor Titus forgives a plot against him from his own wife. Cosi also has the same feature. The women do give in to the attentions of the other lover, each betrothed disguised as an Albanian stranger, after great resistance, are found out and confess, but are granted forgiveness.
A couple of points. The Dover Score, which is widely available, has voice parts in C-clef, so it is hard to use if you are unfamiliar with reading those. A little practice is needed.
Seraglio and Magic Flute are in German with lots of spoken dialogue. This is the "Singspiel", an emerging type of opera which Beethoven's Fidelio is another example. Most of the other Mozart Operas are Italian Opera with no spoken dialogue. In Mozart's day most of the nerration was cast as secco recitative or dry dialogue set to nusic accompanyed by continuo. It usually freely modulates from the key of the preceeding to the key of the next piece. If the Recitative is especially dranatic, it is fully orchestrated. The ensamble and arias are "set", they elaborate an emotional state in the action. This is also true of the cantata literature, i.e. Bach.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Brhams Sextets and Quintets, Amadeus Qt/DG
This is a fine collection of the two Sextets Opp 18 and 36 and the four Quintets Opp. 34, 88, 111 and 115 of Brahms by the Amadeus String Quartet with added solists. The Op 34 is the F-minor Piano Quintet also often incuded with Brahms Piano Quartets in recorded sets. Here, it stands out as a wonderful performance. The Op 115 is the most fetching and famous of the lot, the Clairnet Quintet, and whose second movement is the most tender. But the Op 18, Sextet for Strings in B-flat is prehaps the easiest to approach and the most lyrical. I first learned this piece 35 years ago. I did not know the Op 36, and take a particular shine to its finale. The Op, 88 is also new to me, the theme of its first movement being somehow quintisential for Brahms. I think that the theme of the first movement of Op 36 reminds me of Schubert, from whom one hears lots of echos in Brahms. This recording is 419875-2 on Deutsche Grammophon. The Dover Books Score Johannes Brahms, Complete Chamber Music for Strings contains the music for all but the Op. 34.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
A Fine Performancs of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis
I recommend a performance by Rudolf Barshai and the Russian National Orchestra from 1993. I learned much detail from the recording, on Capriccio 1plus #51036, along with Beethoven Ninth Symphony/Bloomstedt Dresden Staatskepelle, although the former is the superior of the two. Today I had to drag out my score (Eulenberg) and read along, particularly the Cum Sanctus Fugue. The win in this recording is excellant engineering and chorus perperation, which in the above fugue, allowed me to hear inner parts easily. Less than snappy choral conducting leads to mushy sound especially in either of the great fugues that end the Gloria and Credo of this work, and no less than in the shorter Osanna. Beethoven's vocal writing is notoriously taxing on singers, but the discipline of this ensamble brings out the wonder of Beethoven's conception.
Fine Collection of Bach Orgelbuchlein with 4 part chorales
By chance I happened on the Grammaphone issue for December 2005 which included a CD entitled A Bach Christmas which, among other items, included the first 16 Orgelbuchlein Chorale settings for organ. These are associated with Christmas. What is unique about this CD, from BBC Music, is that interleaved with each organ chorale is a sung four-part chorale version in German with translation in the booklet that accompanies the CD. Since there are often more than one four-part chorale setting for a given chorale melody, careful attention seems to be taken with the choice as relates to the organ chorale. There are two famout chorales from cantatas that begin the CD and an organ fugue at the end, but it is the Orgelbuchlein with four-part chorales that make this CD notable.
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